Week 11: Tunacan! Frittata Nicoise

This week’s frittata was inspired by a gift from our friend and
upstairs neighbor Paloma Torres. In our local grocery store, she found
jarred tuna in oil like they sell in Spain and gave it to me for my
birthday (March 10. Yeah, I’m 36.). The tuna became the centerpiece
for this week’s frittata, which after some back-and-forth with the
wife became a frittata with all the ingredients of the French nicoise
salad: tuna, red potatoes, lettuce, spinach, tomatoes, black olives,
hard boiled egg, green beans, capers, and Parmesan cheese.

                           
The dressing was awesome, taken from this recipe on simplyrecipes.com—we had none of the fresh herbs, so we used tarragon Dijon instead of plain:

1/2 cup lemon juice
3/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 medium shallot, minced
1 Tbsp minced fresh thyme leaves
2 Tbsp minced fresh basil leaves
2 teaspoons minced fresh oregano leaves

1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

We had some guests over so we made a 9 egg frittata instead of 6 and
we used a larger Le Crueset platter instead of a cast iron skillet. In
advance, wife boiled and halved the red potatoes, blanched a mess
of green beans, and hard-boiled three eggs. I steamed the spinach for
a minute or two until it wilted. Then I beat the 9 eggs with 2 tbsp
cream and 1 tbsp water. I grated a 2 cups of Parmesan cheese.

I coated the big platter with olive oil and the oil from the tuna jar.
Vanessa suggested mixing the steamed spinach into the egg batter so
that the spinach wouldn’t be clumped in one layer. This is smart, but
we also wanted to avoid having spinach touching the bottom of the
platter. So after warming the platter and oil, I cooked a thin layer
of spinach-less eggs first, then poured in the remaining mix of
spinach and egg.

The eggs cooks like an omelet under high heat on the stove. Peel the
edges back to allow the wet batter to seep under and cook fully. Have
the broiler ready on high. We felt the bottom cooking too quickly, so
we put the platter under the boiler to cook the eggs from above for a
bit. With the eggs barely wet on top, we removed it from the broiler
and layered the tuna on top in thin pieces. Back it went under the
broiler for a few minutes to warm the tuna and cook the last of the
egg. Then we topped it with Parmesan cheese and return to broiler
until the cheese was melted.

We served in a buffet style: a slice of frittata, some potatoes, some
beans, some lettuce, some tomatoes, some black olives, some capers,
some sliced of hard boiled egg. Add some vinaigrette to everything.
The plate cold and fresh except for the hot frittata, making for a
tasty spring meal on our first 60 degree afternoon. We also served a
fresh baguette. The delicate eggs and tuna with the salty capers,
olives, and vinaigrette was delicious!